Baudolino [Hardcover]

Umberto Eco (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Harcourt; First edition. edition (2001)
• ASIN: B00235S0WK
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Travelogue Through the Middle Ages, January 15, 2003

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Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Baudolino (Hardcover)

I adored Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE and FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM - and hated THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE. Umberto Eco's newest novel, BAUDOLINO, lies somewhere in between. In it, Eco returns to familiar territory: the Middle Ages and the theological philosophies that shaped the times. He begins his story during the Fourth Crusade when Constantinople is under attack. A Greek priest Niketas is rescued by a mysterious man named Baudolino who amazingly knows the languages of both attackers and defenders. While the two are in hiding, Baudolino tells Niketas his life story, from his peasant beginnings to his adoption by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick to his quest to discover the kingdom of the legendary priest Prestor John. Baudolino is a self-professed liar, so his story unfolds with the authority of his voice but also with underlying uncertainty. Baudolino believes with passion many of his own lies, lending yet another layer to his tale.

Parts of this novel are brilliant, but Eco does not seem to know what he wants this novel to be. For example, he spends a portion of the book documenting the rise of the Italian city-states, finally focusing on one city and its inhabitants with convincing detail and conflict, only to discard it - just when the situation gets interesting - in favor of a lackluster quest to return the Holy Grail to Prestor John's kingdom. The books covers events that occurred throughout Europe, and somehow (is it his liar's tongue?) Baudolino is always there with his hand stirring up history. Eco devotes huge sections to war, mythological beings, and long treatises on the theological questions of the times. He seems to want to cram everything he knows about the Middle Ages into this novel: myths, misconceptions, historical figures, theological debates, politics. Unfortunately, by not building his story around one or two of these elements, he has ended up with a scattered novel that can be compelling one minute and excruciatingly dull the next. The motivations of the characters are often weak, although sometimes the characters spring up with unexpected vividness, only to fade away once again. I wish Eco had spent more time with the human moments of the Middle Ages to give this era life.

Despite the unmoored aspect to BAUDOLINO, Eco is at his humorous best when inventing, with details that made me laugh, the origin of several Middle Ages "discoveries": the shroud of Turin, the widely circulated letters of Prestor John, the conflicting relics that appeared in various early churches, to name only a few. Several real figures of the times - Zosimos the alchemist, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick and his son, and Niketas himself - have human foibles that make them rise off the page. Baudolino's relationship with both his real and his adoptive fathers are poignant in two separate scenes, and his love for his stepmother is convincingly told.

This is a sinuously told tale with no constant conflict or other driving force, but one which will please readers who love philosophy, intellectual history, and theological debates. I recommend this for patient readers who have a bonafide interest in Eco's work as well as in medieval times. You will be wholly dissatisfied if you are looking for the mystery or conspiracy of Eco's previously successful novels.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Lie, the Fantasy, and Recorded History as Fact?, December 9, 2002

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Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Baudolino (Hardcover)

Expect the unexpected from Eco. Playful with words, concepts, and history, Eco will twist your conception of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, his court, the third and fourth Crusades, paradise on Earth, religious dogma, relics and their sources, till it becomes difficult to tell the real from the unreal. So much so that when two thirds into the book Eco changes from his variant of history to an out and out Cabellian fantasy, complete with unicorns and other less savory creatures, it comes across as merely another short step in the journey of his accomplished liar and linguist protagonist Baudolino.

And what a main character Baudolino is! For every major historical event, from Barbarossa's sieges and compromises with various Italian cities and popes to the discovery and placement of the Three Magi of Cologne, Baudolino is not only there, he is the major instigator. From the opening of the book, when we meet him as a young boy worming his way into Friedrich's graces with his quick wit and tongue, Baudolino is an engaging rascal, full of himself and his own (justified) ability to turn the course of history with a well crafted falsified parchment here, a poem (as presented as by someone else) there, or a quiet word with the Emperor carefully couched in just the language the Emperor wishes to hear.

But this also brings up one of Eco's major themes of this book, on just what is real and true. If people believe in it, does it matter that the relic worshiped as the Holy Grail is actually a common wooden bowl? If the lie will serve a greater good, is it really a lie? If someone, somewhere, declares that something exists, then does it really have an existence? Where is the line between fantasy and reality? Of course, at the same time that Eco is investigating these points, he is also rather savagely satirizing various religious beliefs and demonstrating the hilarity of the life and death dissension of various religious sects over incredibly tiny differences of interpretation of some element of dogma.

As usual, Eco is not an easy read. Besides his liberal sprinkling of Latin, German, and other languages throughout the text, the ideas and history he is presenting are not for the faint of heart or one totally ignorant of this period. Without at least some knowledge of this historical period and Catholic religious dogma, a good portion of what he is saying will be overlooked. A good dictionary should also be a constant companion while reading this, as he often uses some very uncommon words, and sometimes intends some of the lesser known meanings of other more common words.

There are some elements that don't totally work here. I felt his inclusion of a locked room murder mystery within the main body of the work was not really necessary from either a plot or character development standpoint, and plot elements that are linked to this could have easily been handled differently. This element almost seemed like it was tacked on as an expected thing for an Eco novel. The long fantasy section seemed to go on much too long, with rather tiresome long lists of the various creatures and their characteristics. Most of the characters other than Baudolino seem rather two-dimensional, and if they had been given some further rounding, I think Eco's satirical side could have been sharpened. None of these faults are really major, but they do detract somewhat from what is otherwise an outstanding novel.

Different, difficult, discerning, and ultimately deserving of an attentive read.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd...

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Earthy and erudite, October 28, 2002

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Baudolino (Hardcover)

Humorous and obscure, earthy and erudite, Eco's tale of a 12th century Italian peasant whose rise through the court of the Prussian Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, gives him a hand in most of the significant history of the time, delivers the intricate arguments, raucous personalities and mindbending paradoxes readers have come to expect.

The story opens during the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Having saved the historian Niketas, Baudolino proceeds to tell him his story; a grand epic which stars Baudolino as poet, statesman, reluctant soldier, spy, lover, holy man, philosopher, and pilgrim to the mythical realm of Prester John. It encompasses the Crusades, the search for the holy grail, the mysteries of the East, the circular wrangling between pope and potentate, the petty, fluid and bloody rivalries of Italian cities and the state of science at the time.

But there's one caveat. The young Baudolino originally caught his patron's eye because of his two greatest talents - languages and lies. So what to believe?

The choice is yours and the journey is stimulating, although the drug-enhanced Paris student arguments on the great questions of the day begin to read like student arguments of any era, despite the wit. Baudolino is engaging, but as an untrustworthy narrator he maintains a certain distance from the reader. Eco's fans, dictionary in hand, will enjoy the play, but those who got bogged down in "The Name of the Rose" should skip this one.